


Toil & Trouble

by BelladonnaInBloom



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Journalism, Alternate Universe - Sex Shop, F/F, Happy Ending, Mistaken Identity, not smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:15:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27907309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelladonnaInBloom/pseuds/BelladonnaInBloom
Summary: Hecate Hardbroom is a young journalist working for The Women’s Chronicle, a London based magazine. Much to her chagrin, her latest assignment is to cover a local women-owned sex shop called Toil & Trouble. It all starts to look up, however, when she unexpectedly finds herself growing fond of its owner, Ada Cackle… at least until Agatha and her usual sabotage threaten to get in the way.
Relationships: Ada Cackle & Agatha Cackle, Ada Cackle/Hecate Hardbroom, Hecate Hardbroom & Agatha Cackle, Hecate Hardbroom & Dimity Drill
Comments: 10
Kudos: 22





	1. Fire Burn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Minne_My](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minne_My/gifts).



> Rated M for lots of sex toy talk, very little sexual content  
> All chapter titles from Macbeth’s Song of The Witches
> 
> Written for [@Minne_My](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minne_My/pseuds/Minne_My) who shared their idea of a Hecate, Ada, Agatha sex shop AU with me months ago and said I could use it. Not sure that it’s entirely what you had in mind but I hope you enjoy it!

The morning was cold and dim, the bleak expanse of clouds whispering to the world to turn inside and return to the warmth of their blankets and morning coffee. However, like all the other people milling around in the London streets, Hecate had places to be regardless of the chill. She wound her way through the slow-moving pedestrians, all laden down with their Starbucks and ever-pinging phones. 

Checking her watch, she slowed her pace deliberately. She didn’t know why she was hurrying- habit, she supposed. She didn’t even want to arrive at her destination, much less arrive early. 

Yet far too quickly for Hecate’s liking, she turned onto the street that housed her destination. It was a neat street in Soho, lined with boutiques and restaurants, most of which had not yet opened for the day. 

From the outside, Toil & Trouble looked innocuous enough. It had vibrant purple curtains that shielded the windows from the street and a small sign with the store’s name in attractive script lettering. If it wasn’t for the subscript reading, “Pleasure Emporium,” Hecate might not have known it was a sex shop at all. 

Taking a breath to steel herself, she turned in the outer door. She took a moment observing her reflection in the glass of the display case: dark hair pulled into a tight, perfect braid trailing down her back and a black turtleneck neatly covering every inch of skin besides her face and hands. Her image was laughably incongruous reflected against a wall of pink and purple silicone, all various shades of phallic

She rolled her eyes, asking herself how she had ended up with this assignment. She had begged Gwen to give it to Dimity who was so obviously better suited for this sort of story, but all to no avail. 

“Don’t be so quick to dismiss it, Hecate. It’s really a very important topic,” Gwen had said. Right.

Still, it was far more helpful than Dimity’s advice to “make sure her questions were ‘penetrating’ enough,” followed by a peel of snorting laughter. Maybe she understood why Dimity didn’t get the assignment after all. 

She sighed and pushed her way through the inner door, hearing the soft ringing of a bell above her head, announcing her arrival to the empty room. Directly in front of her, she saw an intimidatingly large hot pink dildo and wrinkled her nose at the color. This was going to be the longest day of her life.

“Ah good morning. Welcome to Toil and Trouble,” a woman said as she entered from the back room, smiling warmly. 

“Good morning,” Hecate said, trying to return the cheery smile but fearing that she failed as she usually did at such pleasantries. “I’m Hecate Hardbroom from The Women’s Chronicle, I’m here to interview you about your shop.”

“Yes, of course Miss Hardbroom. Lovely to meet you. I’m so happy to welcome you to the store,” the woman said, her eyes twinkling in good cheer as she swept around the counter. 

She was a woman of about forty, a little on the plump side, with auburn hair, half of it pulled haphazardly into a clip at the back of her head. She had a long swinging skirt and a purple shawl draped over her shoulders. Hecate thought that the woman looked more like she should be running a new age herb shop rather than peddling lube and erotica. 

“I’m Ada Cackle, one of the owners. I’ve never been interviewed for a magazine before but if you’d like, I can show you around the shop and tell you a little about what we do here. We usually don’t get many customers before noon so you have plenty of time to ask me any questions.”

Hecate nodded and began to take out her notebook to write things down. “You don’t get many customers in the morning?” she asked idly.

“No, people seem to find this more of an afternoon activity,” Ada said with a smile and what almost looked like a wink.

Hecate laughed softly and cocked her eyebrows, letting her gaze linger on the woman. She had a warmth in her eyes that gave her an easy-going, maternal sort of vibe- like she was the sort of woman who enjoyed baking Christmas cookies but laughed when they came out half-burnt and misshapen. 

She was relieved to think that Ada didn’t take her work too seriously as it spared Hecate from having to do the same. And as someone who struggled to laugh at herself, she appreciated such humility in others immensely. She couldn’t help but breathe a little easier in this woman’s calming presence. 

“You own this store with your sister, correct?” Hecate asked. 

“Yes, with my sister Agatha,” Ada said. 

“Will she be joining us today as well?”

“No, she’s not in today,” Ada said. If it were up to Agatha, Ada wouldn’t be doing this interview now. When Ada had broached the topic, Agatha called the Women’s Chronicle, ‘a bunch of soft-hitting women’s magazine nonsense’, but Ada kept that information to herself. 

“Is it challenging to run a business with a sibling?” Hecate asked, thinking how impossible it would be to start such an endeavor with any member of her family.

“It’s challenging to run a business with anyone,” Ada said tactfully. “Agatha and I have been scheming with each other since we were children, so I suppose it’s second nature to us by now.” Ada wasn’t sure she felt so positively about the partnership on most days, especially when any kind of public interaction was involved. Agatha was always trying to sell the shop as more tawdry than it really was and it often sparked heated arguments. But on the other hand, Agatha was always better with financials and as long as they kept to their separate spheres, Ada supposed it worked out alright for them both.

A moment of silence hung between them. “Well, how about I show you the store?” Ada proposed. 

Hecate of course agreed and was taken on the full tour of the facilities. She was treated to a wide range of harnesses, vibrators and dildos that were made in house, fully customizable and as Ada assured her, very popular. Hecate tried to keep her face impassive and unaffected and fight the flush that would rise to her cheeks if she paused to think too much about the words this woman was repeating so frequently.

From the other room, they heard the soft ring of the bell and Ada lit up. “Ah, our first customer of the day,” she said as she bustled out into the main room. 

Hecate walked behind Ada with a slow and hesitant tread. Peering around the corner, she saw a young woman, about her own age who was looking over a large table full of dildos, looking overwhelmed and confused. 

“Can I help you find something,” Ada said, approaching the woman with a kind smile. 

“Umm… I’m not sure. I don’t know what I’m looking for really,” the woman said with a hesitant laugh. 

“Well, let me show you what options we have here,” Ada said. Hecate listened intently as Ada explained different shapes, different materials, different girths, equating each size to how many fingers would be similar, giving advice about flared bases and a million other concerns that Hecate had never considered before.

Whatever nerves the woman seemed to have coming in were completely vanished by Ada’s helpful tone, which made it seem as if no topic could ever be embarrassing. The kindness and the care that Ada took with this customer was admirable, Hecate thought, considering that she must have the same conversation so frequently it threatened to lose all meaning. Hecate felt a rush of affection for her as if it was her own nerves she was calming, which in a way, Hecate supposed she was.

Regardless, Hecate struggled to understand why anyone would choose to come into a store like this and own up to their purchase face to face. Certainly there had to be online vendors that would supply the same products along with some much desired anonymity.

Once the woman was gone, Hecate posed her question to Ada. “In this modern era, how do you compete with people who prefer the privacy and the convenience of ordering through someplace like Amazon?”

“Well, first of all, we do offer online ordering options if people are more comfortable that way. But also, people should not buy their sex toys on Amazon,” Ada said firmly. 

When Hecate furrowed her brow, Ada sighed quietly, about to explain. Ada looked as if she was trying hard to contain a very long and practiced rant. “The issue with Amazon as a vendor for sex toys is the immense potential for knock-off, conterfeit, or even used products. When it comes to sex toys, it can be extremely dangerous to receive a counterfeit product that uses cheap materials which may leech harmful chemicals into your body as it degrades overtime as opposed to medical grade silicone or steel or other body-safe materials used by responsible companies.”

Hecate paused from her hurried writing and looked at this calm woman who had just spoken with such passion about an argument she didn’t even know existed. As someone who had never had much interest in acquiring sex toys, she hadn’t considered what they might be made of or why that mattered or all the questions that apparently needed to be asked before purchasing such a personal item. “I had no idea that so much controversy surrounded the issue,” Hecate said simply.

“Many people do not. But it is always important to do research when purchasing anything such a dildo, which must be treated as a medical object by virtue of entering the body. Numerous popular brands have very lax regulations in terms of the safety of their materials and people don’t always know what they’re really buying. The daunting nature of this research often scares women away from exploring sexual accessories; there are too many options, too many articles scaring people away from the bad companies, and too much gratuitous advertising that convinces people that this isn’t a space in which they can feel safe or welcome. Which is what we’ve set out to change,” Ada concluded.

Hecate was silent for a moment. Despite the Women’s Chronicle’s feminist reasons for covering a woman owned sex shop, Hecate had never really considered it that important of a topic. But the way that this woman spoke about her cause with such passion and knowledge had her convinced. The fiery glint that had formed in Ada’s pale eyes was captivating and Hecate realized she hadn’t written anything down in a very long time. Turning to her notebook she scribbled some hurried notes, grateful for her phone recording as a backup. 

Before she could press on, another customer had entered the shop. This one was far more specific about what she wanted and she enquired about the shop’s choice handcuffs and related restraints. Ada didn’t even blink as she walked to a different area of the store and recommended something called Quickie Cuffs that she touted for safety from unexpected accidents. The woman gladly purchased them and went on her way.

The day passed much the same, customer after customer filing in. Some needing help, and others who were clearly regulars restocking some staple accessory or another.

“I don’t know how you do this all day,” Hecate said with a nervous laugh. 

“Ah, yes,” Ada said with a soft laugh. “You know, at first, it used to embarrass me too. But once I did it for a while, I realized that these people were just looking for advice from someone who could help them. And granted that advice was about strap-on size and vibrator strength but once you got over the fact that the topic was sex, there was nothing embarrassing about it. I always feel like once you start talk openly about sex, you wonder why you haven’t been all along,” Ada said with a good-natured chuckle. 

Hecate had stopped blushing at the words but still couldn’t imagine living like Ada day after day after day. She bit her lip and looked up at her in a kind of admiration. She looked around the shop and realized that she ought to be leaving, she had her story. She thought that she would feel relieved at escaping, but a part of her felt an inexplicable desire to stay. It was a part of her that was staring at Ada and didn’t quite want to leave the gaze of those soft, bright eyes.

“I think that I have all that I need for the story,” Hecate said finally, clearing her throat. “I should really be on my way.”

Ada nodded as she watched as Hecate took a final look at the shop. “Does that one there strike your fancy?” Ada asked, following Hecate’s eyes to a blue and purple mottled dildo on the table. “I’ve seen you look at it a few times this morning.”

“Wha… Oh no, I…” Hecate trailed off, unsure of how to continue. She looked up at Ada, but when she looked into her eyes, she saw that the glance meeting her own was kind and gentle and patient. Not trying to push her or embarrass her or call her out but waiting for Hecate to tell her what she wanted. “It’s just… the colors are very nice. And umm… it has a rather appealing shape,” she finally managed to spit out, feeling as if she’d never been more awkward in her entire life. 

Ada smiled. “Well, if it calls to you that much, it has to be a sign. Why don’t you take it with you, as a parting gift for helping me pass a lovely morning.”

“What?” Hecate said, shocked. “No, no... I couldn’t… I,” she stumbled over her protestations. 

Ada regarded her carefully. “I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable, Miss Hardbroom,” she began.

“You’re recommending dildos to me, I think you can call me by my first name,” Hecate said with a rare smile twitching on her lips. 

Ada laughed softly. “Hecate, then,” she said. “I certainly won’t force you to take it with you if you’d rather not. But I see no reason why you shouldn’t have it if you like the look of it, we have plenty more where that came from.” 

Hecate considered for a moment in pained silence before giving in. “Yes, umm alright, yes,” she said with a laugh, meeting Ada’s twinkling eyes. 

“Wonderful,” Ada said, going back into shopkeeper mode. She pulled a box off the shelf and began to explain about the toy as she put it into a black, unmarked bag. “There is a bullet vibrator in the base, but it can be used with or without depending on your preference. It’s on the smaller side so it’s likely to be a comfortable fit for most, although as always, a little warm-up would not be amiss. And of course,” she said, turning to a shelf behind her to pull a small bottle off the shelf and popped it into the bag, “this is a silicone toy, so always use plenty of water-based, not silicone based, lubricant.” She said this very seriously with a teacher-like wag of her finger.

Hecate nodded and took the bag from Ada, which had now been tied with an appealing lavender colored ribbon around the handles. “Thank you, Ada. I had a surprisingly lovely time,” Hecate said. 

Ada smiled and looked down at the counter for a moment. “I hope you enjoy and I look forward to reading your article, Hecate,” she said her name after a pause, carefully as if savouring the taste of it on her tongue. 

Hecate nodded her head in a final acknowledgement and walked out of the shop. 

***

“Oh, Hecate, I’ve been waiting for you to get back. How was your day of debauchery?” Dimity asked when she saw Hecate at her desk. 

Hecate rolled her eyes. “It was fine,” she said. 

“Fine? That’s all I get?” Dimity asked aghast.

“If you want details, you can read my article next Saturday,” Hecate said. 

Dimity shook her head and laughed. “You’re no fun, Hecate,” she said coming behind Hecate to look over her shoulder at the article that was half-typed on her screen. In doing so, she saw a small black package with a purple ribbon that was tucked beneath Hecate’s desk. “Hold up, did you buy something while you were there? I appreciate the multi-tasking of it but I hardly expected it of you Hecate. So delightfully unprofessional,” she teased.

“What? No,” Hecate protested, turning pink. She followed Dimity’s gaze to the package beside her feet and rolled her eyes in exasperation. She looked away in embarrassment. “She… the shop owner gave it to me.”

“She just gave it to you?” Dimity said and snatched the package from beneath her feet. Peaking in, she nodded her approval. “Very pretty,” she said, laughing at the contents. 

Hecate snatched back the package and shoved it into a drawer while giving Dimity an icy stare. 

“Well, I can’t say that I’m not jealous. You get all the best assignments, Hecate. I don’t know how you do it,” Dimity said with a pout. 

“Hardly,” Hecate said, leaning back from her screen. “When I wanted to work as a writer, I never thought my hardest hitting story of the month would be asking some woman about her selection of cock-rings.”

“I can’t believe you just said cock-rings in the office, Hecate. This is a place of business,” Dimity said in mock seriousness and then snorted when she couldn’t hold it in anymore. “C’mon, you don’t even let yourself enjoy it. While some of us were here stuck in this dingy office all day, you got to spend it browsing dildos and came back with an arm full of free sex toys. Which I must say is quite an on-the-nose come on even by my standards” Dimity said.

“Would you keep your voice down?” Hecate said in an acid tone, looking around the office paranoid. “And it wasn’t a come on, it’s… it’s her job.”

“Hmmm perhaps. But job or not, I doubt she’d give away free merchandise to someone unless she was going to enjoy picturing them using it,” Dimity said, giving Hecate a playful elbow in her arm. 

Hecate’s lips grew so thin that they almost disappeared on her face. “Stop it,” Hecate said, shooting daggers at Dimity as her coworker continued to wiggle her eyebrows suggestively in her direction. “I will kill you, Dimity,” she said in a voice that implied it was no exaggeration. Dimity only laughed in response. 

“Fine. Make yourself miserable,” Dimity said. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t be able to help going back to the store tomorrow and letting her know exactly how much I enjoyed her gifts.”

Hecate threw her notepad at the giggling woman who was running away from her in stitches. 

***

At the sound of the door opening once again, Ada looked up to see her sister entering the store after a long day of avoiding the store and the interview taking place inside of it. 

“Good afternoon, Agatha,” Ada said cheerily. “I hope you had a nice day out, it really turned into a lovely afternoon once those clouds cleared up.”

Agatha eyed her suspiciously. “You’re certainly in a chipper sort of mood,” she noted. 

“I suppose that I am,” Ada said with a smile. “I had a very good day.”

“Hmm,” Agatha hummed unimpressed. “So I take it that the interview with The Housewife’s Chronicle went well then,” she said. 

“The Women’s Chronicle,” Ada corrected, feeling far too sunny to be put off by Agatha’s paltry dismissals. “And yes, it did. The reporter was a very nice woman; the article promises to be very good.”

“Well, that remains to be seen,” Agatha said coldly. “But I suppose we’ll know once it comes out.” 

Ada smiled patiently. “That we will.”

Agatha moved behind the counter and glanced over the sales records for the day. “It looks like we did fairly well today, at least.” She paused, squinting at one ledger. “Why does this one say £0.00?” she asked, pointing at the record of Hecate’s gift. 

“Oh, I gave that one away,” Ada said. Sensing Agatha’s disapproval and the sheer potential for jokes from this situation, Ada tried to skate past the topic as quickly as possible. Agatha, however, was not so easily dissuaded; she never was. 

“You gave it away? To whom?” Agatha pressed.

“To the reporter from the Chronicle,” Ada said simply, trying to hide her coloring cheeks. 

Agatha snorted. “I didn’t realize the cost of publicity was so intimate these days,” she said. Ada recognized the familiar glint in Agatha’s eye that she donned whenever she thought she had found something with which to torture her sister mercilessly.

“It wasn’t payment,” Ada said indignantly. “I just saw that she liked it a great deal and I figured she wanted it but was never going to buy it for herself.”

“She must have been pretty indeed to elicit such terrible business practices,” Ada said with a teasing tickle to Ada’s side, although when Ada looked at her, there was very little mirth in her eyes. 

Jumping back from Agatha’s intrusive touch, she rolled her eyes. “Oh, Agatha, it was just one item. Settle down.”

Agatha huffed in disappointment, but to Ada’s surprise, dropped the topic altogether. Ada assumed it would not be the last time she would be teased for giving away dildos to pretty women. She prepared herself for it to be brought up at the worst possible moment. But for now, she was grateful for the respite, no matter how temporary it may prove.

***

Keys clattered into a bowl in the entryway to Hecate’s flat as she closed the door behind her. She put her bags on the floor and heard the soft mewling of her cat, Morganna as she padded into the room to greet her. 

Morganna rubbed her face against the bags, interested in the smells of new places. Rolling onto her back, she bat against the dangling purple ribbon with a playful paw. Hecate snatched the bag up. “This is not for you,” she scolded. 

Of course, she wasn’t so sure how she felt about it being for herself either. A rush of excitement like the thrill of an unopened Christmas present almost made her want to pull the silicone from its packaging and try it out now before dinner and the chores of the evening could distract her.

But the thrill was disrupted with a firm press of anxiety in her chest. What exactly she was anxious about, she couldn’t be sure. She reasoned that whatever happened alone in her own apartment could hardly cause a loss of dignity, but she felt the familiar fear of looking foolish creeping upon her nonetheless. 

She sighed and walked into the kitchen to make dinner, abandoning any thoughts of a torrid after work activity for the moment. Perhaps a mundane distraction was just what she needed to get rid of this uncomfortable energy running through her. 

Running the ribbon between her fingers, she wondered if Ada had expected her to use it tonight, if she’d be disappointed to hear that she hadn’t. Ada. Had she actually allowed a woman whom she had known for no more than a morning to give her… this?

From the vantage point of the present moment, it seemed so ridiculous, too terribly raunchy to be true. There were people she had known for her entire life who wouldn’t have gotten away with such presumption. If they had even tried, she would have had little hesitation about cutting them down to size with a cruel phrase and the cold stare that most of her acquaintances were duly wary of receiving. And yet, here she was, black bag clasped in her hands. 

She supposed that it was testament to this woman’s charm that Hecate had acted so out of character, almost as if she had been under a spell. Perhaps she ought to mind it, but she didn’t. In fact, all she thought about was how quickly she would be able to finish her article and deliver it into Ada’s hands in person.


	2. Double Double

“Agatha, I have to run out for a bit. Can you watch the counter while I’m gone?” Ada asked, pulling her coat on as she peeped into the back room where Agatha was lurking. 

“Certainly, sister, whatever you like,” Agatha replied, sweet as pie. 

Ada narrowed her eyes. Agatha had been in a weird mood all morning, sarcastically sweet at every turn. Ada assumed it had something to do with Geraldine. That troublesome pair seemed to be fighting every other week nowadays and when they were on the outs, Agatha was always brooding and strange. But Ada was tired of hearing about it, so she didn’t ask. 

“I won’t be long,” she called as she headed out the door.

Ada breathed in the fresh air and hurried off. She wouldn’t dawdle even though she enjoyed strolling the streets. She always felt strange leaving Agatha to tend to the shop alone. She always had the niggling feeling that she would come back and see the whole place burned to the ground or otherwise in shambles. It was unwarranted, she reasoned with herself; Agatha had never done any harm to the shop while she was in charge of it, but Ada hurried forth to her errands nonetheless.

***

The familiar sound of a softly ringing bell greeted Hecate as she walked into Toil & Trouble. She felt a surprising jolt when she saw a woman behind the counter. In nearly every way, she looked identical to the mental image that she’d been fawning over for a week. She was surprised to see that Ada was dressed in black today. Certainly she approved of the choice, but the form fitting garment seemed somewhat out of character in comparison to the flowing skirts that Ada had worn the week before. Hecate wondered that Ada’s small spectacles were also missing from her face. Although she hadn’t paid them much mind during their first meeting, she thought that their absence made Ada’s face seem sharper somehow, and for reasons that she couldn’t quite pinpoint, her eyes seem less warm. 

The shopkeeper looked up at her briefly, paying little attention to her customer as she looked back to whatever she was doing at the counter. “Were you looking for anything special today, dear, or just browsing?”

Hecate paused, fists suddenly clenching in self-consciousness. She had of course feared that this second meeting wouldn’t go the way that she hoped, but she had never prepared for Ada to not even remember her face. 

She advanced into the shop, realizing that however much she wanted to turn away and avoid any further embarrassment, it was far too late for that now. “I’m Hecate, Hecate Hardbroom. We met a few days ago when I wrote the article for The Women’s Chronicle,” she said, stumbling over her words. “I came to bring you a copy of the article. It will be out in next week’s edition, but I thought you might like an advanced look.”

The woman’s face was inscrutable for a moment and then it lit up into a cheerful expression that transformed her completely. “Oh yes, of course, silly me. How very sweet of you, Hecate. Do forgive my lapse just there, it’s been a hectic day,” the woman said, her voice sweet as honey as she tried to cover for herself. 

Hecate’s shoulders relaxed slightly at this much warmer address, but the initial lack of recognition had left her ill-at-ease and she fought down feelings of foolishness as she approached the counter and handed over the article. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ve had a hectic day myself,” Hecate said, although it wasn’t strictly true until this very moment. 

“You do seem terribly tense,” Agatha said with a tone of concern.

Hecate opened her mouth but said nothing. She didn’t know how to tell this woman that this was just her natural state

“Well, luckily, we know all about relieving tension here, darling,” Agatha said.

Hecate tried to smile, but it fell flat. Something about the woman’s tone put her on edge, although she couldn’t quite figure out why. She stared at the shopkeeper as the light caught her face and noticed that what she had once described as a twinkle in her eye, now seemed more like a sly glint.

“So how did you like the present, then dear. I’ve been absolutely dying to know,” Agatha asked with a grin. 

“Oh, I,” Hecate stammered, her cheeks coloring pink, disrupting her usually porcelain countenance. She cleared her throat. “I haven’t… used it. I haven’t even taken it out of the packaging,” she confessed.

“Well that’s no good, no good at all,” Agatha said in mock-disappointment. “Perhaps I didn’t hit the mark after all,” she said. Agatha slid around the counter and put her hand possessively on Hecate’s lower back, leading her towards a display on the far wall of the store. 

The familiar touch made Hecate uncomfortable and her posture stiffened as a result, but she allowed herself to be led nonetheless. 

“Perhaps that toy was a bit too vanilla. You look like you need something a bit more… original. Something to unravel that tight little braid of yours,” Agatha said, twisting Hecate’s hair around her finger.

Hecate jerked her head to the side, pulling her braid free of Agatha’s hands. Agatha laughed and pressed onward into the shop. At this point, Hecate felt an almost frantic desire to leave the shop but her confusion kept her in a state of passive indecision. 

“Let’s see, what do we have here to spice you up. Hmm… we have a wonderful selection of gags and blindfolds… restraints of some kind perhaps?” Agatha’s tone was casual but Hecate saw how carefully the woman’s eyes were watching her reactions. 

“Or maybe nipple clamps are more to your liking?” Agatha held up a long chain and opened and closed the tiny clamps in Hecate’s direction. They looked like two tiny creatures, trying to bite her with their metal mouths. 

“I don’t think so…” Hecate said, finding the resolve to back away from this woman. 

“I could help you put them on,” the woman said, her eyebrows wiggling in what Hecate found to be a vulgar parody of seduction. 

“They do look a bit small,” Agatha said, gesturing to her breasts. “But I assume there’s something to grab onto under there.”

Hecate jerked away in disgust. “I should be going,” she said firmly.

“So soon? But we haven’t found anything you fancy yet?” Agatha teased. 

“I don’t think there’s anything I could fancy under this roof,” Hecate said, her voice cold and biting. She turned from the shop and hurried into the street, hearing the bell clanging against wood overhead as she slammed the door behind her.

Hecate raced through the streets of London in a rage. She didn’t consciously remember how she had come home, but she found herself on the steps of her building nonetheless. 

Hecate stormed into her flat and collapsed onto her bed. Although it embarrassed her to do so, even in the privacy of her own home, she burst into tears. Usually so careful, so guarded, and still she had been fooled by that vile woman. She couldn’t figure out what game Ada Cackle had been playing with her, but clearly Hecate had lost, as she so often did in those sorts of things. 

She should have trusted her first instinct: that anyone who decided they wanted to be a purveyor of dildos and porn was nothing more than a sex-crazed old lecher. Pretenses of any other motivation had clearly been for the pr. It was a wonder that Ada Cackle had been able to pull it off for such a long stretch on that first day. And Hecate had been just stupid enough to believe it all. Just foolish and desperate enough to believe that this woman could be truly kind, truly caring, even interested in her. 

She scoffed audibly and turned on her side. She saw the black bag in the corner of the room, propped beside her desk. Racing from her bed in a rage, she grabbed the bag and flung it across the room. Not satisfied, she kicked it beneath her bed and stared after it with a tear-stained face. Hecate knew she should throw it out, and she would. But she didn’t have the energy at the moment and she found it momentarily satisfying enough to know she didn’t have to look at it any longer. 

***

Ada returned to the store and was relieved to find a calm scene of Agatha handing a customer a bag and wishing her a pleasant afternoon. 

“Did I miss anything interesting while I was gone?” Ada asked.

“Interesting? No. But that reporter woman did stop by, she left you this,” Agatha said, gesturing to the paper on the counter. 

Ada made to grab it quickly enough that Agatha smirked. Seeing the opportunity to play with Ada, she pulled the article just out of her reach like a child might do with a toy. “My, my, a little over excited, aren’t we Ada,” she said with a devious grin. 

“Give it here, Agatha,” Ada said, unwilling to play out this game with futile grasps.

“Oh, you’re no fun,” Agatha pouted melodramatically, but proceeded to hand over the article nonetheless. 

Ada’s face lit up as she red the first few lines. “This is really very good, I bet it will draw loads of business once the issue is out,” Ada praised. 

Agatha shrugged. “If you like that sort of fluff piece,” she said. 

“It’s a sex shop, Agatha; it’s hardly going to make BBC World News,” Ada sighed, exasperated. She knew that Agatha was just being stubborn at this point, unwilling to admit that Ada could be right about anything. Still, her persistent negativity was starting to grate. 

“I wish I had been here when she came by so I could have thanked her properly,” Ada said. 

Agatha laughed unkindly. “Is that what you’re calling it?” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” Ada said, biting her lip in annoyance. 

“Oh, I know, you’re all eager to show her your _gratitude_ , but I’m not so sure she’d want what you have to offer,” Agatha said. When Ada began to walk away she continued, calling out to her. “But I wouldn’t consider it to be too big of a loss, Ada. I suppose that she’s attractive, in a leggy librarian sort of way, but you’re living under a delusion if you think that there’s anything worth uncovering beneath that high collar of hers.”

“Oh, Agatha, you think everyone who walks in here is too tame if they’re not wearing a ball gag like a necklace,” Ada chastised. 

Agatha waved her hand dismissively. “She went running out of here as soon as I tried to talk to her about anything at all.”

Ada furrowed her eyebrows, not liking the sound of that interaction. “What did you say to her?”

“Nothing!” Agatha exclaimed in a voice dripping with innocence. “I just talked to her about the shop a little, what we carry. It all seemed to make her very uncomfortable just being around all of this, you can’t imagine that she’d actually want to date its owner,” Agatha said cruelly. 

Ada rolled her eyes and went into the back room to read the article in relative peace. She knew that there was no winning with Agatha when she was in a mood like this. She just hoped that whatever Agatha had said to Hecate wasn’t rude enough to scare her off the entire Cackle family.

***

Ada sat alone behind the counter in her shop and looked around in boredom. It had been a slow day thus far, not that that was so rare on a gloomy afternoon such as this. The Women’s Chronicle article was still laying in front of her and it caught her eye. 

She had loved reading the article and was touched that Hecate had wanted her to see it in advance. The eloquent praise of the shop and its mission was exciting from her vantage point as a business owner, but also on a more personal level, she was happy to know that Hecate had thought so highly of her. 

On an impulse, she found herself picking up the phone and dialing the number of the paper, hoping to catch Hecate to thank her. She didn’t even know what she wanted to say exactly, but she was sure that she didn’t want this woman to be out of her life completely. Besides, the article and it’s personal delivery seemed very promising to Ada no matter what Agatha might have thought. 

Ada was disappointed to hear a chirpy voice on the other end of the phone inform her that “Miss Hardbroom was out of the office at the moment,” but she quickly formulated a few sentences for a message. 

“I just called to thank her for the advanced copy of the article and to tell her how much I enjoyed reading it. I only regret that I wasn’t here when she stopped by. Could you ask her to call me back when has a chance?” Ada said. 

When she was assured that the secretary would do just that, she had hung up the phone and stared at it expectantly for a moment as if Hecate would call her back within the moment. She sighed, feeling like a silly teenager, knowing that her stomach would flutter nervously every time the phone rang for the rest of the day. 

***

“So I told her that if she wanted it to be in the upcoming issue, she should have said something. I’m not a mind reader,” Dimity said as she entered the office with Hecate back from lunch.

Hecate merely nodded absently and Dimity furrowed her brows. 

“Hecate,” the office secretary said, as they passed her desk. “You got a couple calls while you were out.” She handed Hecate slips of paper with messages and numbers.

“Everything alright, HB? The air seems to be distinctly chilly around you today,” Dimity asked. 

Hecate turned to Dimity with a blank expression. “I don’t know what you mean,” Hecate said without even an attempt at a smile. “Everything is fine.”

Hecate flipped through the call slips as she walked. When she came to a slip with the unmistakable name of Ada Cackle, her body went rigid. With startling force, she crumpled the paper and threw it into the nearest waste bin, staring after it as if she were trying to set the bin aflame with her glare. Dimity jumped back, shocked by the sudden rage that Hecate had just displayed. 

“Yep, clearly everything is just peachy,” Dimity mumbled, but she wasn’t sure that Hecate had heard.

***

While out for her daily lunchtime stroll, Ada passed a newsstand that was selling the latest issue The Women’s Chronicle. She already had the advanced copy, of course, but she bought one from the stand anyway. She wasn’t sure why, really, just trying to be supportive of the publication… and its writers. 

She thought of Hecate, as she had many times over the past week. She considered calling the paper again, but dismissed the idea. She figured that if Hecate had wanted to hear from her, she would have returned the first call. Ada may have wanted to speak to Hecate, but she didn’t want to seem like a stalker or some predatory older woman who just wouldn’t leave her alone. 

Agatha was probably right; she was barking up the wrong tree with Hecate. She had certainly thought that Hecate had been interested, or could be, at least. But she understood that being nice was part of the woman’s job. In the end, Ada was just an interesting curiosity for her to analyze for the day; she was foolish to have misconstrued that. 

In hindsight, Ada felt like she should have expected it. The shop had clearly made Hecate uncomfortable and it was unlikely that she would want to date its owner, no matter how easily they got on.

Ada sighed. As much as one might think that owning a sex shop would be a great line in a Tinder profile, all it did was scare away a lot of people. Everyone assumed that she must be a sex-crazed maniac or at least looking for something kinkier than they were willing to give. Or sometimes it just seemed to make people uncomfortable in that way that talking about sex honestly just made people uncomfortable.

Regardless of the reasonings, her job title often served as more of a deterrent than a point of seduction. Agatha certainly seemed to make it work for her somehow. But then again, the two sisters rarely had the same taste in women. 


	3. Then the charm is firm and good

Weeks passed, months followed. Hecate moved on to other stories, other subjects and duly forgot about Toil & Trouble and how prophetic the name had turned out to be. Luckily or unluckily for Hecate, she had always had a particular talent for compartmentalizing that which would be hard to face. And even though a very tangible reminder of the incident lay beneath her bed, she never ventured beneath to seek it out. Not being the domestic sort, keen on deep-cleanings, she never even ran across it by accident. 

Although Ada didn’t have anywhere near the same capacity for compartmentalization, time had allowed the memory to fade for her in due course. When her message had gone unreturned, and the article was published without a word from its author, she was forced to accept the fact that she was unlikely to see the young reporter again. Although the truth was undeniably disappointing, she was quite used to it. This was hardly the first time that she had found herself more alone on a Saturday morning that she would have wished to be. Resolving to take advantage of the morning nonetheless, she ventured out to a street fair near her house to give herself something to do.

***

Browsing a bit of art, Ada glanced down the street and was startled at the sight of a familiar face. “Hecate,” Ada said, calling out fondly without a thought when she saw the woman at the next stand from her. 

Hecate turned at the sound of her name. She expected to see some co-worker from the Chronicle and steeled herself for an undesired round of small talk. But she stopped dead when she saw how wrong she was. “Miss Cackle,” she said blankly, lips forming into a thin, disinterested line. 

Ada’s smile faltered at the woman’s chilly demeanor. She considered turning to leave but for some reason, she pressed on. “It has been quite a long time since I had the pleasure. I never did get to properly thank you for the wonderful article; we had a rather nice uptick in business the following month and I’m sure we have no one but you to thank.”

Hecate couldn’t figure out the woman’s motivation in once again being so cheery, so kind-eyed as they spoke. Almost like she was when they had first met. But Hecate waved away her curiosity. Ada was hardly the first woman to treat her with confounding bouts of hot and cold. Her mind flicked to an ex of hers that had strung her along for years in much the same manner. She had never understood why she brought out this sort of behavior in people, but she was done with caring to crack that particular riddle. 

Hecate didn’t say a word, but her silence did nothing to dissuade the persistent smile on the face of the woman before her. “Well, I just wanted to tell you that, since I never was able to reach you after you dropped off the paper with Agatha.” The woman smiled a bit ruefully. “It was nice to see you again, Hecate. I hope you enjoy the fair,” Ada said as she turned to leave. 

Hecate’s throat suddenly felt thick as she tried to swallow. “Agatha?” she asked dumbly, causing Ada to turn back around with a quizzical expression. 

“Yes, my sister, the one you gave the advance copy of the article to,” Ada said. She thought about turning to leave again, but the look on Hecate’s face kept her planted in place. Hecate’s eyes looked pained, yet gentler somehow, as if some small piece of her carefully constructed wall had just shattered. 

“Your sister,” Hecate mused absently. “You look so much alike.”

Ada chuckled. “Yes, identical twins. It has proved convenient and not at different times in our lives.” 

“I think this might be one of the distinctly inconvenient times,” Hecate said so quietly that Ada wasn’t sure she had caught every word. 

Before Ada could ask her to repeat herself, Hecate had interrupted her. 

“Ada, would you like to get a cup of coffee,” Hecate asked with crisp insistence. 

Ada’s eyes widened, caught off-guard by this sudden change in address and by the intensity with which the invitation was proffered. But, of course, she said yes. How could she ever say anything else to this enigma of a woman. 

Once they had found a quiet spot to talk, Hecate told her the whole story. The mistaken identity, and the subsequent confusion were laid bare, although Hecate significantly softened the feelings of betrayal that had plagued her in the retelling.

“She hasn’t pulled a trick like this since we were children, I can’t imagine what could have possessed her,” Ada raged. The couple from the next table glanced over at the raised voice and Ada made an attempt to calm herself. She was silent for a long moment that Hecate was unwilling to break. “Do you have siblings?” Ada finally asked.

“Two sisters,” Hecate said emotionlessly. “We don’t talk much.”

Ada sniffed loudly. “Normally, I would say that I’m sorry to hear that, but perhaps, it’s for the best.”

“Well, we always believed so,” Hecate said. 

Ada offered her a weak smile and returned to her moody thoughts for a silent minute. 

“Hecate, I’m really sorry about what Agatha said to you,” Ada began earnestly. “And I’m doubly sorry that you were forced to believe such cruelty came from me. I want you to know that I would never try to make you feel uncomfortable in that way. I would never try to make anyone uncomfortable in that way, but especially not you.”

Hecate’s glacial cheeks warmed slightly at being singled out in this way. “I think I know that now,” she said. Even though the Ada that sat before her now was angry and glum, Hecate felt the familiar sense of trust that the woman had elicited so many months ago upon their first meeting. Ada smiled up at her, looking more at ease, if only slightly and continued to drink her coffee. 

Their conversation turned idle after that. They chatted about their jobs, the recent news and the fair outside that they had each been so quick to abandon. When they could stretch out a coffee date no longer, they agreed to meet again. This time, for dinner on the following evening. And the night after. And the night after that. 

As they found themselves outside the door to Hecate’s building, Ada reached up to kiss her. Ada pressed her lips to Hecates chastely, as she had done on the nights prior. 

On the proceeding nights, Hecate had allowed this abundance of caution on Ada’s part. She allowed Ada to hold her for no more than a handful of moments and drift away into the evening. She allowed Ada to make her point, that she was not her sister, that she intended to treat Hecate with respect. But Hecate was finding that a point made too frequently rather loses its impact, and she was beginning to feel impatient. 

Ada began to pull away, but Hecate grabbed her cheek and held her closer, renewing the kiss with an intense fervor that earned her a giddy giggle from Ada’s lips. She allowed herself to savour the soft heat of Ada’s lips on her own before she pulled free.

“Would you like to come up for a nightcap?” Hecate panted, still holding Ada’s arms to keep her close. 

“Oh, I don’t drink,” Ada said reflexively, immediately kicking herself for answering so literally to a question that was obviously innuendo. 

“I can make coffee,” Hecate said without missing a beat. 

Ada readily agreed and found herself on Hecate’s couch. 

Whether Hecate had so much as measured out the coffee beans, neither one could remember. What Hecate did remember was Ada pulling her to the couch into a kiss that was so far from chaste, it left her breathless. She remembered struggling to stay on the cushions as she positioned herself over Ada, sliding hands over her ribs, trailing lips over her neck.

She remembered the words, “Do you want to go into the bedroom,” escaping her own mouth and Ada’s eager nod as she pulled her along with interlaced fingers into the other room, lit only by street lights and moon rays filtering through the blinds.

It wasn’t until her bra was being slipped from her shoulders that all of the old fears that had kept her from pushing for this on previous evenings began to rear their head once again. Ada literally owned a sex shop, Hecate worried furiously. She would know so much more than Hecate could possibly. And while hardly a blushing virgin herself, she feared that she would have no idea how to please a woman such as this.

Ada felt Hecate’s arms stiffen around her and pulled away from the kisses that had suddenly lost their fervor. “Hecate, are you alright?” Ada asked, concern in her tone.

“Yes, yes of course,” Hecate lied, her lips forming a thin line as she attempted to look reassuring. She didn’t know how to tell Ada that she was concerned about being inadequate in bed, that was hardly the thing any woman wanted to hear from her prospective lover. 

“No offense, dear, but you’re not that good of a liar,” Ada chuckled and stroked Hecate’s cheek tenderly when she dropped her head. “What are you thinking about?”

“I,” Hecate started but paused. She raised her face to Ada’s, trying to keep her gaze firm but the look in her eyes was pained and frantic. “I’m just worried that I’ll be too tame for you,” she said finally, with a sigh. “Disappointing.”

Hecate didn’t know what she expected Ada to do or say but the kindness in Ada’s pained expression caught her off-guard.

“Hecate, you flatter me by thinking that I would be so exciting, but I promise you it’s an unfounded concern,” Ada said, grasping Hecate’s wrist and circling her pulse with the pad of her thumb. 

“I appreciate you trying to assuage my nerves, but all of the stuff that you have in your shop. You’re so comfortable with all of it, and I wouldn’t even know where to begin with any of it,” Hecate said, her desire to protect her fragile sense of dignity now lost as confessions spilled out of her. 

“Oh, Hecate. Certainly, I think things like that can be fun. But I don’t need any of it, I don’t necessarily even want it most of the time,” Ada said, putting a consoling hand on Hecate’s forearm. The touch was hardly sexual but the heat from Ada’s fingers spread and made Hecate shiver.

“Then what do you want?” Hecate asked.

“You,” Ada said so earnestly that Hecate couldn’t help but believe her. 

“That’s all?” Hecate asked, flirtatious apprehension in her tone.

“As if that isn’t more than enough,” Ada said. Something inside of Hecate seemed to melt as Ada moved her hand to cup her cheek and pulled her into a kiss that was no longer hasty and hurried, but slow and gentle. Hecate leaned back into sheets, the sound of her nagging inner voice silenced beneath her own pounding heart. 

***

Hecate awoke to a kiss on her temple and a throaty whisper saying “Good morning,” in her ear. She squinted her eyes against the sunlight that was now streaming into the bedroom to see a hazy shape of Ada bending over her. 

“Good morning,” she whispered, her voice not quite ready to speak. “What time is it,” she asked as she closed her eyes again and reached out to feel Ada’s warm skin beneath her fingers.

Ada reached for her wristwatch on the nightstand but her fingers, still clumsy with sleep, let it slip out of her hand. “I suppose we’ll never know,” she said with a laugh. 

Hecate chuckled and pulled Ada to her chest. This moment was one of the few instances when she was fairly sure that it didn’t matter what time it was at all. 

After a morning of sunwashed dozing, Ada decided to retrieve her watch from the ground after all. Hecate watched her with a smile as she came onto all fours on the ground, reaching ungracefully under the bed to find the lost item. 

As Ada grasped her watch, she noticed something else familiar just beside it. It was a black bag with a purple ribbon, still perfectly tied around the handles. Before considering whether she should leave it where it lay, she pulled it free. 

“The bag from the shop,” she mused. “You didn’t open it.”

Although Ada’s tone was hardly accusatory, Hecate stiffened at the sight of the bag once again. “Yes, well. I was mad at you at the time… or who I thought was you,” she explained. “I forgot that it was even under there.”

Ada pulled the toy from the packaging and examined it. “We could always… try it out together?” she asked tentatively.

Hecate bit her lip, but her eyes had grown bright with intrigue. “If you promise to be gentle with me,” Hecate said in a way that was mostly trying to be flirtatious rather than genuine. But Ada looked at her with such a tender expression.

“Always,” she said quite seriously and rose as Hecate beckoned her back onto the bed. 

***

Months later, Hecate entered the shop again, hearing the bell announce her arrival as usual. By now, the sound was so familiar that it hardly registered in Hecate’s consciousness.

She glanced at Ada at the far end of the shop wearing a dark, form-fitting dress but gone were the days where such an outfit would have made her wonder if this was really the Cackle she had hoped to find. 

Ada had all but completely ousted Agatha from the running of the shop after the incident with Hecate. For the first time, Ada was grateful that she had begrudgingly taken her lawyer’s advice and remained the majority shareholder even after bringing Agatha into the business as partner. Now Agatha was almost never seen around the shop and Ada couldn’t quite bring herself to mind; Hecate certainly did not. 

When Hecate had questioned Ada as to why she thought Agatha had impersonated her at all, Ada’s theories had spanned from Agatha’s own problematic love life to resentment about Ada’s control over the store. Although Ada couldn’t be sure what it was, she had wondered whether the sabotage had been part of some larger scheme that Agatha had been concocting. 

But, Hecate figured that such speculations might be giving Agatha too much credit. She figured that the twin was just the sort of person who caused chaos wherever she went out of some sense of boredom or an instinctual desire to make everyone around her just as miserable as she was herself. She wondered if even Agatha knew the reason why she pulled such tricks half the time. 

“Good evening, Ada,” Hecate said, finally catching Ada’s attention. “Ready to close up for the day?”

“Yes, just about,” Ada said, leaning into Hecate to kiss her. If she had had any doubts about the identity of her lover, the gentleness in her kiss would have sent them flying away. 

“You look lovely in black,” Hecate commented, standing back to take in the sight. 

“I thought you might approve,” Ada said with a wink. “I just need to finish restocking these and then I can call it a day.”

“Let me help you,” Hecate said and scoffled up a large number of toys and walked to put them away. Crossing the store, she caught a glimpse of herself, laden down with pink silicone and to her own surprise, she smiled. Certainly she looked ridiculous, but she wasn’t sure that it mattered anymore. At least she knew that Ada wouldn’t think so and there was no one else in the shop to concern herself with. 

Ada glanced over at Hecate and smiled at how meticulously she put each item on the shelf, perfectly straight and in order. Perhaps it should have been an erotic sight to see her lover resting her long fingers on so many implements of pleasure and pain, but Ada didn’t think so. It was just comfortable and quiet as they went about their work, both eagerly awaiting the delectable trouble that they would be able to cause this evening, once this toil was done. 


End file.
